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Category Archives: Uncategorized
How did Mali get here? (Part 3: Anti-imperialist explanations)
To account for the extent of state decay and recent political violence in Mali, Western journalists, diplomats and security specialists have often focused on proximate causes (e.g., Islamic radicalization, state corruption, the spread of small arms, and inter-ethnic tensions) with … Continue reading
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How did Mali get here? (Part 2: From military rule to multiparty politics)
Introduction: This post is the second in a series reviewing Mali’s modern history and present trajectory. Subsequent posts will survey the distinct but overlapping analyses of Mali’s postcolonial development. As I work to improve my draft for publication, I invite … Continue reading
How did Mali get here? (Part 1: Echoes of decolonization)
Introduction: Recently I’ve been drafting a brief overview of Mali’s modern history and present trajectory. The aim is to excavate the long-term political, economic, and historical underpinnings of Mali’s ongoing instability. This post is the first in a series on … Continue reading
Mafiacracy: The Malian state adrift
This post was written by A. Karim Sylla of the MaliLink Investigative Reporting Group. A longer version in French, featuring additional coverage of irregularities in public finance and high-level government appointments, appeared on 24 January in Bamako’s Le Républicain newspaper. … Continue reading
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Africa comes to Washington
English novelist David Lodge once observed that professional conferences have become a modern form of pilgrimage. Much like medieval pilgrims, he wrote, conference-goers today “indulge themselves in all the pleasures and diversions of travel while appearing to be austerely bent … Continue reading
Changement et désespoir : lettre d’un ami américain
Mon cher Lamine, Tu m’as demandé, une fois les résultats du scrutin présidentiel américain connus, “Comment cela a-t-il pu se produire ? Comment la démocratie la plus puissante du monde a-t-elle élu un démagogue déséquilibré à la présidence ?” Comme … Continue reading
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Despairing for change: A letter to a Malian friend
Dear Lamine, You asked me, once the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election was apparent: How could this happen? How could the world’s most powerful democracy elect a volatile demagogue to the highest office in the land? Like many … Continue reading
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Kicking the foreigners out
Amid the recent hype over Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric in the US, the anniversary of a landmark crackdown on unwanted foreigners has quietly slipped past. 20 years ago this week, police broke down the doors of the Eglise Saint-Bernard in … Continue reading
Is Mali heading back to the abyss?
July was a bad month for Mali. On the 12th, government security forces fired on unarmed demonstrators in Gao, killing three. The protestors were denouncing the establishment of interim local authorities–a provision of the peace accord signed in June 2015, … Continue reading
Getting a read on Serval
From January 2013 through July 2014, the French military carried out on Malian territory a vast intervention codenamed Opération Serval. It has been reputed to be the largest unilateral overseas deployment of France’s armed forces since the Algerian war ended … Continue reading
